On 07/14/2017 11:32 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
Many, many years ago I acquired a bunch of Terak micros from a storage
locker. It was being leased by my employer and no one had been tracking
what was stored there. One day a beancounter showed up, questioned the
monthly payment and instructed us to "clean it out". I got the Teraks. But,
there was another item sitting in the storage locker. An Array Processor.
Still bolted to the pallet it shipped on. Never used. was intended for use
with a Prime 850 but that deal never went through. It could also have
been used on a VAX (and maybe even a PDP-11 but I can't say that for
sure.) I would have taken it except for the fact that it was completely
covered in bird crap because it was out of its packaging and not covered
with anyone. This was mid 1980's. Anybody here remember what these
things were worth then? :-(
$50K for a small one. I scrapped a CSPI array processor
that was put on our VAX 780. They guys who bought it had a
serial program that was written all in integers, and went
out and bought this to accelerate their program. I got it
running, showed them how to use it, and they said "Oh, it
needs floating point, it is too hard to recode our program!"
So, 50K down the drain! Geez!
Jon
